Rawcliffe flood victims packed the hall of Canon Lee School and angrily accused the City of York Council council and emergency services of abandoning them in their hour of need.

Hundreds of residents attended the heated two-and-a-half hour meeting where they bombarded the panel with questions and demanded a public inquiry into why their cries for help were apparently ignored.

Rod Hills, leader of City of York Council, Bill Woolley, the council's assistant director of development and environmental services, Chief Superintendent Gary Barnett, of York Police, and Dave Williamson, from Yorkshire Water, were among those who fielded the points raised.

They included claims that early reports of flooding problems from backed-up drains in the Rawcliffe area were not heeded.

Residents said they were "dropped like a third world country", "absolutely and totally abandoned" and "sacrificed" in favour of other parts of the city.

It was not until they were wandering around their living rooms in waders on Saturday, a full five days after their problems began, that a massive pumping operation began and the waters were drained from their wrecked homes.

They claimed it was only then, when the river had passed its peak and the danger had, for that time, passed, that the emergency operation could turn its attention to helping them.

And Mr Woolley said their homes did not even feature in the city's emergency flood plan, despite the fact that around half of the city's 353 flooded properties ended up being in the Rawcliffe area.

Mr Woolley said: "There is a glaring error in this emergency plan and that is that there is nothing on here about Rawcliffe.

"The Environment Agency have a system of warning properties that are liable to flood and warned all the households in these areas. There is no such plan for Rawcliffe."

But one resident said: "In 1982 Rawcliffe Croft was flooded. To say you didn't know that Rawcliffe would flood, I'm sorry, but it's wrong and this is what is hurting people."

Chief Supt Barnett, said: "We had reports of minor flooding due to water backing up the drains and we took the decision to concentrate our resources on where we could make most use and where we could save lives as we didn't have the resources to save everything.

"There are several of our officers in this audience tonight who have also had their houses flooded. Everybody worked flat out."

Annette Sunney, of Shipton Road, said: "On Tuesday our street was under two feet of water and I reported it.

"They unblocked Blue Beck but they didn't pump the water out and it was rising by about an inch an hour.

"I asked about two or three times a day to remove the water from Shipton Road and by Thursday we had a lake.

"There were two empty fields across the road, they could have pumped it across there."

Janine Taylor, who has just moved out of her parents' home in Rawcliffe Croft, said: "The chain of command and connection between people answering the Floodline and the people at Silver Control wasn't working. People from Rawcliffe are angry. I think you should give them what they deserve and that is a public inquiry."

Others called for no more development on Rawcliffe land until the flooding problem has been fully assessed and dealt with.

They blamed building such as the Rawcliffe Bar Park & Ride site for reducing the flood plain.

"You've gone on approving developments and now we've reached the day of reckoning," said one.

rebecca.gilbert@ycp.co.uk